In industry today, many mechanical devices, generally referred to as robots, are used to perform many repetitive tasks. Robots usually include, or may consist almost completely of, an arm having an end, referred to as an end effector, which end effector is either dedicated to a certain application or designed to handle a group of components that are different in sizes but have the same geometry. A dedicated end effector usually means a dedicated robot. If the cycle time is controlled by another cell, that cell and the robot arm are only utilized a fraction of the time, or manufacturing cycle. For example, if a robot arm end effector is designed to place a component on a printed circuit board, once the component is placed on the board the arm is idle until all of the remaining tasks are completed and the next board is moved into place. Since robot arms are relatively expensive and require considerable operating room, this can be a very serious problem.